The Likeness

Six months have passed since the conclusion of Operation Vestal; Rob left the murder squad and the Dublin police, while Cassie Maddox opted for joining the domestic violence squad.

One day, in a ruined cottage in the Irish fields, the body of a young woman is found. The woman, killed by knife stabbing, responds to the name Alexandra Madison, the fake alias that Cassie used in an undercover operation years before. For this reason Frank Mackey, director of the undercover squad, is involved in the inquiry; he notice the amazing likeness between the unknown dead woman and Cassie, and proposes to the police woman to work again as undercover to help the murder squad in discovering who killed the woman.

The police, about the dead person, knows only that she assumed the identity of Alexandra, that she was attending a PhD course in literature and that she used to live with other four students in Whitethorn House, and ancient house in the Irish countryside.

The point of view we follow in this second novel of the Dublin Murder Squad series is Cassie’s, who accepts to join the four students in Whitethorn House, like Alexandra Madison never have been killed but only wounded.

The premise of the novel could be defined unlikely (a woman like Cassie who happens to adopt the identity Cassie made up in undercover activity years before), but despite this the novel is very engaging, in particular after Cassie begins the undercover activity again. For the ones who read the first volume of the series (In the Woods), the reasons of Cassie’s dismay are evident, and also the motivation behind some unconventional choices in the undercover activity.

Again, Tana French builds up another thriller where the character’s psychology (every one of them very well described by Cassie’s PoV) plays a key role in the story.